“We Attacked Based on That” How Paul Skenes and the Pirates Exploited the Dodgers’ Fastball Weakness to Seal Their Surprising Series Win

It was the same old story for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Their batters stood in front of the pitcher but had no answer for his fastballs. The fact that this time it was the firebreathing Paul Skenes standing on the mound only increased their troubles. As for the Pittsburgh Pirates, they had done thorough research on what was quickly becoming a massive downfall for the Blue Crew. But just how deep does the issue go?

On Wednesday, the Dodgers were in the middle of the pack when it came to fastballs. The team was 20th in batting average (.290), 14th in whiff rate (21.4%), and 15th in slugging percentage (.412). For a team with such a huge wealth of talent at its disposal, these are shockingly low numbers. So did it surprise anyone if Paul Skenes and company decided to exploit it? Not at all.

During his postgame interview, Skenes was asked about preparing for the Dodgers’ weakness. The rookie agreed that they had discussed it during their team meeting. “Yeah, a little bit. We did our game planning but obviously, the game’s going to tell us a lot also. But we kind of attacked based on that,” Skenes said. The Pirates flamethrower continuously hovered over 97 mph and that proved to be successful. 

After all, despite being hit for a massive home run by Shohei Ohtani, the Skenes gave away only 3 runs and 6 hits overall. As for the Dodgers, their numbers continue to plummet for pitches that are over 97 mph. Before this game, they were batting at just .124 on such pitches (per Los Angeles Times). That put them second-to-last in all of MLB. 

So what is causing such issues? The answers might not be clear. However, their skipper Dave Roberts, did try to diagnose the problem after the game and series loss against the Pirates.

Los Angeles Dodgers had no answer for Paul Skenes’ fastballs

With the Dodgers failing to build against Skenes, the clubhouse was in a mellow mood. “I think there’s a little bit of pause (in our approach), as far as making the decision and being a little to careful at times, trying to see the ball a little too long,” Dave Roberts said. The skipper noted that it can safeguard players from breaking balls but it “causes you to be late on the heater.”

So is this it? Were the Los Angeles Dodgers’ issues stemming from the fact that they were being too cautious? Perhaps they were. However, the core issue is that they still haven’t found a way to fix it. And as we’ve seen in the past few weeks, nearly every time has begun to exploit this weakness of theirs. 

As Roberts said, “Until you can show you can flip the script or do something different, then they’re going to continue to exploit that.” But how can the Dodgers flip the script? Doc certainly has his work cut out for him.